It is with sadness that I have to announce my retirement as a Joomla! developer, due to ill health. Late last year I was diagnosed with stage four cancer. I have survived cancer twice in the past, but unfortunately it has returned, and is no longer curable. My prognosis is that I may survive for a year or two, it is hard to be sure.

Until recently I was hoping that I might be able to return to some part time work in the meantime, which would allow me to maintain this site, and update my extensions. It has become increasingly clear that this is not going to be possible. I am just not well enough. I have not been able to offer the level of support for my extensions which I would wish for the past year, and for that I apologise to anyone inconvenienced by it.

Some people may be wondering what will happen to my extensions? I will leave this site up temporarily, so that the non-commercial ones can remain available for free download. If anyone wants to fork them, or just put them on github, then feel free to do so. However, if you do that, then please let me know, and please also accept some responsibility for maintaining the code.

I am looking at passing on the commercial extensions to another developer. If you are a developer and would be interested in taking this on please contact me through Facebook . The GooglebaseXML extension appears to be working with the latest versions of Joomla and Virtuemart (at the time of writing), so doesn't currently require any updates, Since 31st October Amazon has changed its Product Advertising API, so the Amazon extensions will require an update in order to work. The amount of work required to make the extensions compatible with the new API is not vast, so could be accomplished by a competent PHP developer.

I have mostly enjoyed my time as a Joomla developer, and it really is a difficult thing to give it up. As well as being a developer, I spent several years working as a volunteer for the Joomla Vulnerable Extensions List, which was certainly interesting.

I looked at several CMSs before committing my time to Joomla, it definitely has the best community. I think that it is worth reminding ourselves of that. I know that there is often bickering within the community, but in spite of that (or maybe because of it), together a group of volunteers have create a remarkable thing, and I am proud to have been a part.